Vladimir Putin’s latest twisted bid to break his jailed foe Alexei Navalny is to put him in a cramped cell with an imprisoned “unwashed alcoholic”, the Kremlin critic has claimed.
Putin is said to take an active interest in humiliating the jailed anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader who wants to oust him from the Kremlin.
Navalny, 46, was moved to a “torture prison” notorious for sexual violence against inmates.
Then he was put in a punishment cell likened to a “concrete kennel” after defying warders and starting a trade union for inmates.
Now a stinking homeless man has been put with Navalny as his cellmate in the 10ft by 6ft 6inches hellhole with a hole-in-the-floor toilet.
Navalny claimed in a message from his jail that the prison officers calculate he will beat up the man, who would then qualify for a move to another cell.
In this case Navalny would face criminal prosecution.
“If you live in a cell, with another person at arm’s length from you 24/7, and both of you are between one and two metres from a toilet, while the toilet is a hole in the floor, then maintaining hygiene is of paramount importance,” said Navalny.
“A problematic inmate will immediately make your life unbearable."
He said that according to perverted "jail rules" he was expected to beat and threaten the man.
“But to beat someone is a criminal offence, and... there are CCTVs everywhere.
“And secondly, to beat a poor sick lame alcoholic doesn’t pass an important test question of ‘What would Jesus do?'”
Navalny said the “poor unwashed fellow started to knock on the door, and demand to move him to another cell, and even did so in writing”.
But the jailers refuse to move him - because he shows no sign of having been beaten.
Instead, Navalny - who claims he would be Russia ’s president if an election were held without rigging in Putin’s favour - has shared his soap and washing powder with the man.
He has taught him to wash and clean his clothes, he said, mocking the bid by Putin's jailers to break him.
From jail, the charismatic campaigner Navalny has called for action to defeat warmonger Putin.
In one message he said: "Any action aimed at weakening any of the elements of the Putinist system is right and it is the duty of every citizen.”
Navalny, incarcerated in Penal Colony 6 in Melekhovo, Vladimir region, is seen in the West as a political prisoner.
He is serving an 11-and-a-half year sentence in prison for parole violations, fraud and contempt of court charges.
